Finally got the headlight motors mounted, I may need to tweak the final position but temporarily will be a good start. I used a piece of mild steel and bent it to provide the proper spacing of the motors and the mounting surface. The motors had a steel end piece that luckily was removable and that is what I welded the mounts onto.

Once the motors were mounted I worked on making the linkages necessary to get the popup headlights basically working. A lot of work goes into these small parts as I ended up making one set, throwing them away and starting over as I did not like the results.

The 'interior' linkages that connect to the headlights are a fixed length, while the ones that go from the motors to the mechanism are adjustable. My thinking was that it might be necessary to adjust them for proper operation and the ones inside the front trunk compartment are far easier to get to than the others.

Here is a picture of the fixed length ones on the left and the adjustable ones on the right:

I marked the center of the trunk area and made a paper template, also locating where the headlights would protrude. I tried making the headlight 'holes' as tight as possible figuring that I can fine tune them when done. Once the first piece of wood was cut out I flipped it over to see how close it was going to be from side-to-side and it ended up being quite close and cut out the second piece.

Once the initial fit was determined I took the pieces flipped them over and gave them a coat of resin on the inside surface. I also used resin anywhere inside the front fender area to at least seal up the wood for now. Later on I will do some additional work from under the vehicle.

To mount them I used glue along the outer shaping strip and some fiberglass mat and resin anywhere that the pieces contacted the original chassis. Here are some pictures of the installation:

In looking closely I determined that the shaping strip on the passenger side is about 1/4" lower than on the drivers side. I should be able to compensate for this as I need to put foam on the outer edges of the shaping strip to give a better radius and along the sides of the vehicle from front to back, as well as all along the windshield to get a smooth transition.

Well as it turns out I won BOTH auctions (and saved a bunch of money), which at the price that I paid have NO problems with!!! Once I receive them I will look them over and decide which ones that I will be using and resell the pair that I decide not to use. These will be mounted on the sides of the rear deck to help with removing hot air from within the engine compartment, much like in the styling of the Tri-Magnum.

I had seen how Shep used vents in his application and liked the look, in addition I think that they will help keep heat down and be functional as well as a nice styling item!

I have decided that I am going to rework this area and may end up using foam if I can not bend the 1/4" plywood to my satisfaction.

But first I will need to glass over the top of the trunk area. I need to do this as there is a nice bow from front to back caused by pulling the skin down to the shaping sticks and I want to keep this bow.

I am afraid that if I 'tweak' the front section that I am talking about that the bow will diminish, and to take it a bit farther: since the wood is under stress to create the bow, when I cut off the front trunk lid I am afraid that the stresses will allow the lid to flatten out!

I decided that redesigning the very front of the vehicle will wait till later so it does not slow down my progress. My intension (at this time) is to glue foam to the inside of the fender skins and glue foam to the front of the vehicle, then if need be I can cut off/grind the wood skin right down to the foam pieces, and shape the entire front at one time and if I decide to stay with what I have then that is fine too.

While I had the fiberglass out I taped the very rear where the rear deck lid meets the tail light support, forgot to do this before when I was taping the rear deck lid.

I also used some Tiger-hair bondo to fill some gaps on the inside of the door skins where there is a space between the skin and the frame, trying to give some additional strength to these areas for when they get cut off the body.

First order was to do some correcting around the headlights. The 1/4" plywood directly in front of the lights is actually a bit too high and would block some of the light coming from the headlights so I decided to 'accent' this area. When done this area directly in front of the headlights will be slightly lower than the rest of the front end, I think that it will add an interesting break up of the continuous front end styling and when done I will add some nice radiusing to the transition areas.

Next I started laying up some foam sections onto the front end of the vehicle. I used 2" near the doors and 1" along the sides and had to put additional onto the 2" foam near the doors (not shown here) as I do not have any 3" foam... Weight is definitely needed to hold some portions of the foam in contact with the skin if you use contact cement. As an alternative you could instead use some fiberglass resin, which would make sanding the finish surface easier as you would not have to deal with the contact cement forming little balls on your sandpaper... The blue foam is the 2" and the yellow is the 1":

This 3" foam will be necessary to transition from the front of the doors down to the front deck. The 1" foam will be used to create a radius from the side fenders to the top of the deck as well and feather out to basically nothing towards the inside edges. And most of it in front of the headlights will also be removed. And there will be a styling line from where the door leading edge meets the windshield support all the way down past the outer edge of the headlights towards the front of the vehicle, as shown by the red lines in the picture above.

Then I changed my attention to the rear canopy and decided to glass it. I put one layer of 1-1/2oz mat followed by one layer of 6oz cloth. Must have made the resin mix a little hot and REALLY had to hurry with this large complicated section, but completed it JUST in time!!! As many people can attest to mixing catalyst is largely a guessing game, with the smaller sections that I previously did such as taping the seams I mixed only 8oz of resin adding about 5ml of MEK peroxide. In doing the back canopy I mixed 24oz of resin and about 17ml of MEK peroxide and had to move about as fast as I could possibly move!!! This is probably about 4x recommended dosage but the recommended dose is for perfect conditions, you also have to take into account temperature as well as humidity so it is a crap shoot at best! The last thing that you want however is for the resin to NOT go off..... Here are a couple of shots of the rear canopy area glassed:

The area covered was basically using the entire width of the material going sideways and enough to wrap around the taillight support. I probably used almost 2yds of both the mat and cloth.

Here is a quick primer as to how I do fiberglassing:

First thing to do is to lay out the fiberglass mat onto the area that you are doing and make any cut lines in it to allow for awkward bends etc, make some marks on the skin so that later you know how to roughly position it and then fold it up so that when ready you can put it down close to original position. Lay out the cloth and cut to size so that it extends an inch or two beyond the mat, fold it up and put aside.

Next mix up some resin/catalyst and wet out the plywood with resin and then lay down the fiberglass mat and get it positioned properly then wet out the entire mat with more resin being sure to completely saturate the material. The most important step however is next, then using a roller (no not like a paint roller, but made specifically for this purpose) to make sure that the mat comes into COMPLETE contact with the surface, forcing out any air bubbles.

Next position the cloth over the mat and position it properly and spread it out over the mat, then again wet it out with more resin. It also is also sometimes handy to roll it again, pressing it into all the inside bends and outside bends as well as the flat surfaces, you might find that when you press it into one area that you pulled it out from another - leaving an air gap. On verticle surfaces you will probably need more resin as it tends to bleed out from the cloth as it is absorbed, if at all possible you want all the spaces between the fibers filled with resin.

Finally make any cuts in the cloth so that it wraps any corners and lays as flat as possible I typically leave cutting the cloth till this point, it is too difficult to cut it before hand, and get it positioned perfectly so that the cuts are in the correct position. Then double check the surface area for any more air bubbles, if the cloth is not saturated enough add more resin. I typically will again roll it to ensure that there are no air bubbles.

Unless you are working on a small area, you probably will find that you need to mix up multiple batches of resin to get the area covered, be sure to measure both resin and catalyst to get repeatable results. Follow the mixing instructions, you rarely have to add less catalyst (unless it is 0% humidity and 80 degrees!) and typically you have to add more, in colder periods I typically use 3-4x the recommended amount. If the resin starts to gel throw it out and do not use it! If you did not add enough catalyst and the resin is not going off in a reasonable amount of time then mix up a hot batch and apply it over the existing resin, this will typically correct the situation.

It typically is a mad race to get it all done before the resin goes off!!!

Here is another picture from directly in back of the vehicle.

Here is a picture comparing the two, on the top is one from a 280ZX, and the one on the bottom is from a 300ZX. You can see that the 280ZX is basically triangular while the one from the 300ZX has a curved section which probably conforms to the different window style, and it is also larger.

Here are individual shots with each louver on the drivers side of the vehicle. The visual impression is that the one from the 300ZX is too large for the area and the curved section does not fit the rest of the contours. I was not sure which way the curved section on the 300Zx louvers went but believe that it goes towards the roof line, I tried both of them and basically came to the same conclusion that for my particular application they would have to be mounted too close to the rear deck lid cut line to fit properly. The louvers from the 280ZX fits the space that I have better, I can move them towards the rear further and the overall shape appears to follow the lines of my vehicle better as well.

First thing that I did was to use a drywall hole saw and cut off excess foam, leaving about 1/2" and then using the rough cut lumber got the basic profile done, and then finished it with the narrow stick so that I had a lot more control. With the final passes I made sure to look a lot between sides, and get them as close as possible. I can't say enough about what a great job that the rough cut lumber did!

As you can see quite a bit of foam was removed to get the final profile, but it does not hurt to have too much foam. I wish that I had the 3" foam instead of using the 2" + 1" as I had to deal with the contact cement that tends to ball up, but cleared my 'cutting' tool each pass and it worked out ok. What happens is that these balls stick to the board then gouge the underlying foam so it is important to take it slow.

Had to pick up some more materials today the fiberglass mat and cloth represents the total that I have used so far on the exterior of the vehicle.

I had been using lacquer thinner for cleanup but the acetone work FAR better and my local ACE hardware store was the only one that sold in gallon containers, the local Advance auto store only sold it in quarts.

The gap in the roof/windshield frames need to be filled with some foam. The reason for this is as the doors/roof are glassed this area becomes the portion of the doors that contact the sealing rubber and keeps out wind/rain/etc. Once the doors are glassed and cut off the body this foam is simply removed from the inside of the door and then the inside of the door is finished. Next I radiused the door edges so that when I do glass them they will have a nicer transition to the roof and windshield lines.Here are some pictures of the foam in the gap:

I also had to use some 1/2" foam where the bottom of the windshield meets the front deck. I used a small plastic tube around the windshield wiper mast to try to keep it as clean as possible.

It is also a good idea to use some masking tape and put it on the windshield frame and roof frame where glass and sunroof go, I forgot to on one side and now it will take some extra work to clean out puddles of resin that settled into this area

Next I put down two layers of mat and 1 layer of cloth on the front deck foamed areas and finished glassing them in as well as below the windshield area. More work will have to be done to this area but it is a good start

Initially I took some 2" foam and contact cemented it to the drivers side of the rear canopy and profiled it. I ended up taking it off as it was just too thick and way more than I needed to get some styling, the styling line looked ok but it was just too thick when I got up to the door area. It was easier to rip it off and replace it with 1" foam which worked out much better. I had to taper it off to nothing on the side of the door this task went so quickly that I was able to do the drivers side as well as the passenger side!

I'm glad that I got the gallon of contact cement I probably used almost 1/2 gallon today alone! If you are edge gluing foam it should take a lot less cement than coating the entire contact surface in the way that I am applying foam to the wood skin structure. But at least with my skill set this method is working out well for me.

Here are some pictures of the foam job, I have both yellow and blue 1" foam:

The lower styling line (shown with the red line on the picture on the right) is pretty simple to form, you use the lower portion of the chassis below it as a guide and simply continue the line through the foam. Again bring your cut lines to the surface of the foam to use later when you want to cut off the sections.

I also got the drivers side all glassed in as well as before using two layers of 1.5oz mat and a single layer of 6oz cloth. You will want to 'wrap' the glassing around the bottom edge of both the canopy as well as the drivers door.

This morning the weather was decent enough so I went to the local salvage yard in search of turn signals and other goodies. I got 2 pair of front turn signals from a Plymouth Acclaim and 1 set from a Dodge Colt wagon. The ones from the Colt are slightly shorter than the Acclaim and I will be using them on the sides of the front for running/turn signals, and the Acclaim ones on the bumper area. Also got 1 pair of amber side marker lights and 1 pair of red side marker lights, both from a Colt.

I used a piece of 1/4" plywood and cemented a piece of 1/2" foam to it so that it fit snugly into the roof area. The foam extended above the roof line by 1/4" and I tapered it down leaving the center higher so as to form a slight radius to the roof line and then glassed it in.

I should also note that I'm not sure how easy it will be to remove the sunroof from the roof, a lot of resin went into the small crack between the roof framework and the sunroof. I know that not only do I have to cut the outside of the sunroof, but also from the inside - go through the 1/4" birch plywood and most of the way through the foam. Then I have the task of removing the left-over portion along with all of the resin in the gutter area to finish up. Had I taken a couple minutes to think about this BEFORE I glassed the area I could have prevented this by waxing the gutter area first (or other methods) - hope you learn from my mistakes!

Then I used masking tape and taped up the exposed hinges so that I would not get resin into them and glassed in the windshield pillars to the doors as well as the rear of the door areas. You can see the foam in the gutter area.

There was some mis-alignment at the back of the doors where the door meets the body, so I built up the area with extra layers of mat so that they were close. I know that there is the potential that once I cut off the doors for more mis-alignment, that will be taken care of at that time. I can compensate a bit by adjusting the bolt on the latch and (hopefully) using as little bondo as possible.
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I had been tossing around a numer of ideas about what I would like the front to look like and had already ordered up a pair of fog lamp assemblies from a Honda 6/Prelude/MPV.

But in looking at how small an area that there is to work with I wish that I hadn't ordered the fog lamp assemblies and it looks like I will might not be using them after all.

I had numerous other photos of other front bumpers of various import and exotic vehicles and as I sat in front of a 6" thick foam blank realized that I probably did not have the artistic ability to pull it off and in the end decided that the front end to keep it simple (KISS methodology).

If you look in the Vortex literature there seems to be 2 distinct styles in the photos, Steven Pombo appears to have redesigned the vehicle and the 'newer' styling (page #57) is shown on the electric version of the vehicle. I will be using the 'older' styling (page #37) as shown in the raw foam images in the literature as I like it better and should be easier to form. In the end I will simply have just the 2 front turn signals on the front bumper and tapered down to a small air dam below it.

I took and drew out a 2" grid pattern on the face of the bumper for reference and used some figerglass resin to attach the foam onto the front of the vehicle (I ran out of contact cement). Here are some pictures of the start of the front bumper, it is not done yet and just the sides have been tapered around. If you look closely you will still see the 2" grid markings on the front.

The top side of it has a couple layers of mat applied and the turn signals are roughed in.I placed the turn signals as wide as possible on the bumper, one reason was that the bulbs are inserted from the backside of the unit and I had to position the wiring so that I could get to it from inside the front of the fender area. So additional material alongside the turn signals will be removed so that my hand can reach it from the back side.

Ok, I decided to start over again on the front bumper and figured that it would be easier to make it out of 2 pieces rather than try to re-shape a large lump of foam. I first cut 3 pieces of foam to make up the main part one 10", one 9" and one 8" tall and used contact cement to glue them up into a block and used a rasp to get the approximate shape BEFORE I glued it onto the vehicle. This probably saved hours of back breaking work, working on the floor of the shop.

Prior to glueing on I put the front of the vehicle up on some blocks to make it easier to work on and then removed all remnants of the previous bumper and ground the whole area down. In addition I decided to use the turn signals from the Dodge Colt, they were narrower and didn't overpower the front of the vehicle like the ones from the Acclaim seemed to do. I cut the receiving holes for them off the vehicle as well, I then glued the top portion of the bumper on and shaped the sides to round and taper towards the front.

The lower portion of the bumper is simply a piece of 2" thick foam about 4-1/2" tall, this got glued on next. I also put 2 pieces of foam on the front fenders ahead of the tires and did a lot of work to taper them down. The bottom area of the bumper should act as a sort of dam and hopefully help to divert air to the sides of the vehicle rather than under the bottom of it. Here is a shot that shows the front of the new bumper:

And here are some side and angle shots:

Next I glassed up the entire front bumper. This turned out to be a bigger job than I thought that it would be with all of the profiles, angles and such and had to really scramble to get it all glassed in before the resin went off. Afterwards I noticed that one small area sagged a bit on the bottom side. Later on I will grind off this area and re-glass it over.

Since the flair is a compound curve, it is real hard to visualize looking at a block of foam, so I worked with a picture of Alex Smith's Vortex next to me and kept referencing it (a lot!). Boy without the help and pictures supplied by both Alex and Shep I think that this project would be FAR more difficult than it has been as I have their vehicles for reference - THANK YOU BOTH!!!

The fender flairs would appear to be simple enough but it took all day to glue them up, shape them and then glass them as it is a compound curve that takes quite a bit of work to get it right and a good part of the time you are laying on the ground doing the work. It is hard to tell if the each side matches the other as in my shop I have very little work room on the passenger side of the vehicle, once I get the vehicle outside in the light I can double check this. I do know that the drivers side has the look that I was going for, and I think that the passenger side might be a bit rounder, so later on I can grind it down and re-profile it.

Here is a shot of the drivers side on the left and a another showing the inside of the fender well so you can see how it ties into the vehicle. You will also notice that I used bondo to fill in some of the gaps, with the larger gaps I used the Tiger-hair (it spans large gaps better) and then ground it down and put in some 'normal' bondo. As usual I used 2 layers of mat and a single layer of cloth.

More work will need to be done at a later date inside the fender wells to seal up the wood skin and the chassis but this is for now a real good start.

I also double checked my cut lines for the front of the doors and probed using a 1/8" drill bit so that I could verify them, and it is a good thing that I did as I had to move the lines in order to get proper overhang of the chassis. This area will have the rubber seal located in it and if I did not double check I might not have had enough room for the seal.